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Indepth Arts News:
"The Short Century. Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945 - 1994"
2001-05-18 until 2001-07-29
House of World Cultures
Berlin, ,
DE Germany
From May 18 to July 29, 2001,the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the
World Cultures) will be showing the exhibition The Short
Century.Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945 - 1994 in
the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.
The exhibition is curated by Okwui Enwezor,artistic director of Documenta
11. With this exhibition, Okwui Enwezor encompasses the many faces of
African Modernism and redefines Africa's place in the annals of 20th
century history. The Short century documents the history of Africa since
its partition in 1884/85 during the Berlin conference.The exhibition
centers on the short century of liberation from colonialism from 1945 to
the abolition of apartheid in 1994.
The interdisciplinary approach of the
exhibition links historical documents with contemporary artistic
standpoints, and confronts the creations of colonial and anti-colonial
propaganda - film and photography, but also poster art, print media and
textiles - from both private collections and government archives. This
exhibition means that unique examples of regional artistic currents, from
the Egyptian awakening to South African resistance art can now be seen in
Germany for the first time. Architecture and town planning are shown here
as an expression of a new, collective self-confidence manifest in the young
African states.
The exhibits show personal and collective self-representations of an Africa
undergoing urbanisation which is in constant dialogue with the major cities
of Europe and North America due to its artists and intellectuals living
abroad. Official representations of history are reframed by private pieces
of memorabilia: family albums, shrines to memory, memoirs, fashions in
dress and popular music take their place alongside traditional art and
revolutionary kitsch.
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